75 and counting! Bengaluru man behind the wooden mask

Bengaluru: Thirty-six-year-old Gaurav Rai has a unique passion which started during his college days. “I have always been intrigued by facial expressions. These have fascinated me since my early college days and fuelled my passion to buy different kinds of masks,” he said. His burning interest has made him the proud owner of seventy-five masks collected from various parts of the country and abroad.

Gaurav, the co-founder of a lighting and home decor company, is also a theatre person and his love for theatre has a lot to do with his fondness for facial expressions.

“Wherever I travel I collect a wooden mask,” he says. His most prized possession, however, are the four masks signed by a renowned Balinese mask-maker, Ida Bagus Anom and bought by him to add to his collection. "I went to Bali three years back and I had already done a lot of reading about the famous mask maker called IB Anom. Luckily when I went to his studio he was actually there and he himself signed four masks for me," he recalled.

His passion for collecting masks is so strong that now his friends and family gift him masks on various occasions. "My family and friends are so charmed by my passion that they gift me masks if they get their hands on anything captivating," he observed.

The oldest mask that he owns is that of Buddha he got from Thailand. "We were driving to someplace and I just happened to see this beautiful mask by the road in a small shop. And in an instant, I bought it at a fairly cheap rate. It has the perfect face of a Buddha," he said.

Gaurav, however, is only interested in the theatrical aspect of the mask. "I just love to collect masks which have this theatrical element to them. Many masks in my possession were used for theatre and plays and can be worn," he says and adds  that money is the least of his concerns when he sees something that he wants to buy. "If you have a passion then you cannot let it be ruined by issues like cost," he smiles.

His sights are fixed on South America, where he believes he can buy great masks. "A lot of my friends have told me that Colombia and other Latin American countries are places where I can get my hands on a huge mask collection. Hence I have set my eyes there," he summed up.